Democratic congressional candidate Sean Patrick Maloney, center, watches with campaign workers and family as he appeared headed for victory in New York’s future 18th Congressional District.

Maloney near victory in 18th District

By CHRIS MCKENNA

Times Herald-Record

November 07, 2012 - 2:00 AM

Democratic challenger Sean Patrick Maloney appeared headed for an upset victory over Rep. Nan Hayworth in a tight race for New York's future 18th Congressional District, according to nearly completed but unofficial vote tallies.

Maloney, who had trailed Hayworth by 7 percentage points in a Siena College poll last month, was leading the Republican incumbent by more than 3 points early Wednesday morning, with tallies finished in Putnam and Dutchess counties and with 98 percent of districts counted in Orange County and 86 percent of Westchester districts tabulated.

Both candidates reacted cautiously, declining to declare victory or concede until the tallies were completed.

Hayworth and Maloney had waged a highly combative race in one of the state's most competitive House contests, supported by more than $5.3 million that outside groups spent on commercials and mailings.

Hayworth, a Westchester County doctor who took office in a Republican wave in 2010, was running for a second term against a Manhattan attorney who worked in the Clinton White House and the administrations of Govs. Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson. The candidates branded each other extremists and cast themselves as moderates to appeal to voters in a swing district.

Maloney pinned the "tea party" label on Hayworth at every turn and hammered her relentlessly for her positions on Medicare, Planned Parenthood funding and tax cuts. He argued she was too conservative for a region that has elected Democrats John Hall and Maurice Hinchey and moderate Republicans like Ben Gilman and Sue Kelly.

Hayworth, in turn, cast Maloney — who has homes in Manhattan and Sullivan County and bought a house in the future 18th District while seeking the Democratic nomination — as a carpetbagger with no roots in the Hudson Valley. She intensified her counter-attacks late in the campaign, questioning Maloney's "honesty and integrity."

Under new lines taking effect in January, the 18th District will consist of all of Orange and Putnam counties and parts of Dutchess and Westchester.